Oddworld: Soulstorm reveals first batch of images in community ARG

Soulstorm is due in the second half of 2017.

Last year, Oddworld Inhabitants confirmed a sequel to 2014's Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty was on its way. Named Oddworld: Soulstorm, it was scheduled for the second half of this year and follow on from its forerunner—which was a remake of the '97 original Abe's Oddysee. Whether or not Soulstorm mirrors 1998's Abe's Exoddus (the sequel to Oddysee) remains to be seen, however a new screen has been revealed as a result of a neat ongoing community ARG.

Since Soulstorm's announcement last year, a mysterious Mudokon-sympathising group named the 'Spirit of 1029' has been feeding the incoming game's community snippets of information, distorted photos and sound bites which have been discussed at length via the Soulstorm's dedicated Reddit feed. Ed, a Mudokon "who seemed to be trapped somewhere, alone and afraid" appeared on Twitter posting garbled and panicked messages and it was revealed the Mudokon race is "under a new threat."

"After an extensive effort by the Oddworld community, most of those messages were deciphered and we were led to a web page that contained eight torn up and burned fragments of a photograph that appeared to depict something as terrible and terrifying as the audio clip suggested," so reads a post on the Oddworld site. "After a few days of tireless work from our community and our team at Oddworld Inhabitants, we managed to get a clean version of this image. The clearer the image became, the harder it became to look at until we were eventually left with the image above.

"Whatever might be happening to the Mudokons, a few things are clear. They are not happy. They are not safe. They are oppressed. Now, Spirit of 1029 has made contact again and they’re saying that there’s more evidence of these atrocities yet to see. We need your help to find the truth. We can’t do it alone. We will encourage people to take a stand, we will spread the message and refuse to sit in silence. We will save the Mudokons."

I loved this Oddworld games in my younger years, and thoroughly enjoyed 2014's reimagining of the original so naturally I think this is pretty cool. If you'd like to help uncover the remaining four images of the Soulstorm ARG, you should head in this direction.